Couple of African Violet Questions

[Mountaineer370]

I was recently given three African Violets by a friend who moved out of state and couldn't take them with her. I have never owned these particular houseplants before, so I'm trying to study up. I know there must be more than a few OB members who grow AVs in addition to orchids.

My first question concerns potting mix. I believe my plants need to be repotted soon, and I am driving myself crazy trying to decide what to use. I'm reading that the commercial mixes are not ideal. Everything I read says they like a mixture of peat/perlite/vermiculite, more or less. However, I have scared myself away from peat by reading how much fungus gnats like it. I was considering coir as a substitute. Anybody have any experience with that, pro or con?

My second question is this. I would love to find an online discussion board about African Violets, one that is as great as this board! I'm having no luck. The forums I am finding are not organized very well, no search functions, no separate categories and topics, all posts just in chronological order, so you have to scroll and scroll and scroll to find what you are looking for. There must be something out there. Anybody know of a nice AV discussion board?

[Bayard]

Gardenweb forums African Violet forum is a good place to start.

[Mountaineer370]

Thanks, Bayard! That's one of the ones I did find, but I can't see that there is any organization of the posts into topics, unless I'm missing something. It seems like you just scroll and scroll until you find a thread title you want to open. I have lucked upon some very helpful information there, though.

P.S. That cat in your avatar is beautiful!

[DeaC]

Check outTHE VIOLET BARN - Violet BarnThey give info as well as selling plants. I've ordered from them and the selection is vast.

[Bayard]

Mountaineer370 - You can search the African Violet forum. Just type in your search terms at the top of the page, then choose the AV forum.

[Mountaineer370]

Thanks again, Bayard. I did figure out that there are two search bars. At first, I had only noticed the one at the top that searches the entire site, not just AVs. But I see now that there is a second one lower down. So I tried that and found that I have to register with the site to use the search function, which is odd because I don't have to register to scroll through and read all the posts. I also get a frequent pop-up asking me to join. So I'll browse that forum a bit more and decide if I want to do that.

Thanks, also, DeaC, for your link. They don't have a discussion forum, but there is a lot of good information there.

I guess I'm just very spoiled (in a good way!) with the way the OB and a couple of dog-related forums I belong to are organized neatly into different categories, and finding information pertaining to a particular subject seems much easier.

[estación seca]

There is also The Gesneriad Society.

There is the Gesneriphiles online discussion group for gesneriads. There are a lot of very advanced African violet growers there who respond to questions. It is free to join. The archives are available to members only. You can read the messages online or you can receive them in your E-mail box. You can choose to receive E-mails from other subscribers as they come in, or in a periodic digest.

[Mountaineer370]

Thanks for those two links, estacion seca! I've just skimmed them for now, but they look interesting enough that I will be going back later to browse in detail.